Research

Building America, a Department of Energy program, awarded Southface a grant to investigate indoor air quality (IAQ) in new and existing homes. Working with key industry experts, Southface expects to research the anticipated link between IAQ and chronic health problems.

Over the past three years, Southface has conducted research on the small commercial building sector through a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The Advanced Commercial Building Initiative (ACBI) aims to demystify building systems and remove barriers to resource efficiency. The small commercial sector (buildings less than 50,000 sq. ft.) has long been a…

Nationally, building scientists and healthcare professionals are learning that both common and more obscure irritants can be addressed in environmental home assessments and interventions, improving both the comfort and health of our indoor environments. Southface is positioning itself at the forefront of this movement.

With funding from the EPA, Southface staff have developed a crucial new data reporting tool to track energy and water use across building certification programs and housing sectors in the Southeast. Data reporting and analysis is up and running for the Home Energy Rating System and EarthCraft programs already!

Recently at Southface, we tried an experiment to limit water use. Challenged to reduce our water consumption by 20 percent in order to meet the requirements of the Atlanta Better Buildings Challenge, we decided to monitor our behavior in an easy, low-tech way.

As a RESNET Quality Assurance Designee (QAD), Jenna manages the Southface Energy Rated Homes (SERH) providership and serves as a mentor and technical advisor for new and existing independent HERS and Southface staff. She is involved with overseeing the ENERGY STAR, Indoor airPLUS and WaterSense programs and ensuring that all third-party quality assurance responsibilities are performed and reported. Jenna also provides training support for a variety of Southface trainings such as HERS and ENERGY STAR, and offers technical support to the residential and commercial teams in general.

Southface’s long-term research interests in this project are to analyze the performance of two unique features of this home over the course of a year and expand the knowledge of actual field performance of these emerging technologies.